


me & you makes two

by twinkyixing



Series: #messdrabbles [4]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Exchange Student AU, M/M, but an accidental arranged marriage, luvin this mishmash thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 22:58:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7194308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinkyixing/pseuds/twinkyixing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kyungsoo finds out that he didn't actually sign up for an exchange student program.</p>
            </blockquote>





	me & you makes two

**Author's Note:**

> Exchange student au + arranged marriage au!

Kyungsoo steps off the plane and looks around at the airport. He decides that it’s weirder than he thought to be surrounded by unfamiliar characters, only half of which he knows how to pronounce. But that’s the point of studying abroad, he supposes. Immersion experience and everything.

Rounding a corner, Kyungsoo scans the waiting area for his host family. The pamphlet he’d gotten from a harried administrator said he would be with the Huang family, and that they had a son around his age. He’s looking forward to having someone his own age show him around Qingdao.

His eyes land on a huge group of people and pass over them, trying to find his own group. He’s covered the whole waiting area twice now and there are no signs that have his name or anything. Worry snakes through his stomach. What if his host family forgot about him? What if the program had been a scam?

“Kyungsoo!” calls a thick voice, settling the fear creeping up Kyungsoo’s throat. Someone is here for him. He turns to follow the noise and finds himself facing at least 10 people, all eagerly smiling at him. Forcing himself not to balk, he walks forward and goes over his introduction in his head.

His thoughts are interrupted when a blond boy rushes over to meet him and claps him on the back, chattering in rapid Mandarin. Dimly, Kyungsoo remembers how to ask someone to repeat themselves and the word for slow. He has a feeling he’ll be falling back on that pretty often.

The boy, just taller than him, guides him back to the waiting group and starts listing off names. Kyungsoo concentrates hard, trying his best to match them to faces. With a smile, the boy introduces himself as Zitao. Kyungsoo likes him so far. He seems very excited to have an exchange student, which is more than Kyungsoo had hoped for.

En masse, they all make their way toward the parking lot. There’s more than one car, thankfully, but Kyungsoo still ends up squished next to Zitao. He can’t say he minds much. Zitao is far from unappealing, he notes with some anxiety about sharing a room for the next 6 months. He’ll have to play it by ear to see what Zitao’s comfortable with.

Somehow, he’s keen to find out.

/ / /

Zitao is comfortable with more than Kyungsoo had expected. They had settled into the house just fine; it’s absolutely massive. He actually has his own room, and it looks like it used to be a huge closet before it was cleared out. That would explain the connecting door to Zitao’s room pretty well.

Dinner was like he’d thought it would be, with lots of questions and slow speech for his benefit. At one point Zitao drops into Korean to explain a phrase that Kyungsoo doesn’t know; Kyungsoo is very bad at hiding his shock. It’s husky Korean, all rounded edges and whooshing syllables, but surprisingly nice to hear in a foreign country. Kyungsoo thanks Zitao in Korean and smiles, returning to his food.

The rest of the meal passes happily and Kyungsoo heads back to his room with a full stomach. His empty room still feels alien, and he’s grateful to hear Zitao bustling around on the other side of the wall. He’s just pulling on his pajama pants when the connecting door clicks in it frame and opens without so much as a knock.

Zitao doesn’t seem shocked to see Kyungsoo in a state of undress, seems to actually have expected it, and Kyungsoo tries to make sense of the look in his eyes. Zitao strides forward with purpose and stops in front of Kyungsoo, kneeling on the floor. His face is all bright fire, shining in the last bits of sunset that filter through the windows.

“I wanted to thank you for coming here,” he rasps. Kyungsoo realizes that Zitao’s voice is always this throaty and his mouth gets a bit dry. That connecting door is starting to seem more and more like a burden. In front of him, Zitao looks expectant.

“Thank you for having me,” he answers. The laugh that flashes in Zitao’s eyes tell him his pronunciation needs work, but Kyungsoo thinks that he’ll learn anything Zitao has to teach him.

Heat rushes to his cheeks as Zitao places a heavy hand on his knee. Their eyes lock for a long moment and Kyungsoo sees the sunlight shift on Zitao’s cheek, hitting the hard line of his jaw. He swallows loudly and Zitao shifts, ending the moment.

A smile returns to Zitao’s face and he stands, surveying the bare room. Turning back toward the door to his own room, he quips, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to stay in here for long.” Kyungsoo cocks his head in question. Seeing his confusion Zitao adds, “After the ceremony you can move in with me. My room is a lot bigger.”

Through sheer force of will, Kyungsoo keeps his jaw from dropping open. Zitao is gone with no more explanation than a playful _good night_ , and Kyungsoo is left alone to parse through what he’d just heard.

At first he thinks he’d just misunderstood. Second language, nerves, Zitao’s fast speech; it seems possible he misheard. But then things start to click into place.

The application form had asked for both a headshot and a full-body picture, which he hadn’t really questioned at the time. It had made sense for a family to want to know as much as possible about someone they would be housing and feeding for half a year. That’s why he had answered all those questions no matter how personal they seemed. The series of questions about grooming kinda stands out now.

Kyungsoo goes to sleep that night with the knowledge that he might have accidentally agreed to marry a total stranger.

/ / /

The next morning is… quiet. He pads out of his room as softly as he can, even though he can tell most of the house’s inhabitants have left for the day. He can still hear Zitao’s alarm clock going off when he gets back to his room with a bowl of cereal. (Thankfully, Cinnamon Toast Crunch boxes look almost the same as they do in Korea.)

He’s been up for a few hours, scrolling back through the program website and confirming his suspicions. So he’d royally fucked up. Zitao and his family seem nice enough, they’ll definitely understand. He decides to explain everything to Zitao when he finally wakes up.

Clicking over to the airport website, Kyungsoo is met with more not-so-great news. The next (reasonable) flight back to Seoul isn’t for another two weeks. There are sooner departures, but he doesn’t want to force this poor family to get up at 3 am because of his mistake. And the house is pretty nice anyway. He can deal with staying for a bit longer, as long as he can clear everything up first.

Kyungsoo has just reserved a spot on a flight back to Seoul, grumbling about inordinately high transfer fees, when Zitao launches himself into the room. He’s not dressed, Kyungsoo notes, jerking his eyes back to the laptop screen in front of him.

Zitao wraps an arm around him and nuzzles into his neck carefully, gauging Kyungsoo’s reaction. He can’t say he doesn’t like the feeling of Zitao’s soft hair tickling his ear. The heat of his proximity isn’t too bad either. Honestly, it’s unfair for someone to look this good immediately after getting out of bed.

He hears a small noise of surprise as Zitao sees what’s on his laptop screen, and realizes what this must look like. Snapping around to face Zitao, he rushes to explain.

“I think there’s been a….” He searches for the word. “A misunderstanding.” Zitao’s brows furrow and he opens his mouth, but Kyungsoo continues on. “I thought I was coming here to study, not, uh, marry you.” He squeaks out the last words and tries not to stare at the floor.

“Oh,” Zitao huffs. Disappointment crosses the language barrier pretty well, Kyungsoo recognizes. He can’t let the silence stretch on so he tries to fill it again.

“The good news is that I can’t leave for two weeks,” he murmurs. It is good news, he thinks. After all, he’d planned on spending half a year here. And Zitao is nice. They’ll get along, he hopes. Even after all this.

Kyungsoo snatches a glance back up at Zitao and finds his face has lit up. It’s Kyungsoo’s turn to be confused, apparently. Zitao smiles at the bewilderment that must be written all over his face. “I’m not that upset, you know. The marriage thing was my parents’ idea.” It starts to make sense now. Still, Zitao had seemed so excited to meet him.

Answering Kyungsoo’s unspoken question, Zitao mumbles, “It just helped that you were way cuter than I’d expected.”

He can feel his brows trying to disappear into his hairline while his cheeks flush deep red. It’s one thing to be told you’re cute, and another thing entirely to be told by someone as attractive as Zitao. Kyungsoo lets himself bask in the compliment for a second before coming back to the actual situation. Zitao’s parents will have to be told, and who knows how that will go. They seemed jovial enough at dinner last night, but that was when they thought Kyungsoo was going to marry their son.

Zitao looks like he’s realizing the same thing, and grimaces to match Kyungsoo’s expression. “Parents?” Kyungsoo asks, uncertain. There’s still a warm air of a shared secret between them, a joke, and he doesn’t want to puncture the bubble.

“We’ll deal with that later,” Zitao laughs out. Kyungsoo likes the inviting character of Zitao’s laugh and chuckles a little himself. This has already been weird enough, he doesn’t need to go sulking off to a corner. Might as well enjoy the time here.

Scanning over Zitao again, Kyungsoo gets a pleasant idea of how he could enjoy his stay even more.

**Author's Note:**

> lol sorry for being too lazy to write a sex scene


End file.
